North Shore Art Throb: Launch of a Cool Arts Initiative — Right in Lovecraft Country

Many of my readers are die-hard fans, students, and spiritual children of H.P. Lovecraft, so with that in mind I thought I’d give a heads up about the launch of a cool and interesting new online arts publication in Boston’s North Shore, which is, of course, right where Lovecraft located a substantial portion of his fictional gothic-haunted New England landscape, including the “witch-cursed, legend-haunted city of Arkham” (probably modeled on Salem) and the achingly beautiful town of Kingsport (modeled on Marblehead).

I should also mention that there’s a nepotistic aspect to my highlighting of this project, since it’s being spearheaded by my sister, Dinah Cardin, who has worked as a journalist all around New England for the past decade and in Salem itself for the past several years (and whom you can read about at this link).

The project/publication is titled North Shore Art Throb and is self-described as “an independent publication and a collaboration of many talented writers and photographers” whose aim is “to chronicle the importance of art in our everyday lives” by offering “in-depth coverage of art openings, musical gigs, poetry readings, plays, films and such. Expressions of art, like the art of dating, of cooking, of travel and the search for spirituality. And also fairly comprehensive event listings across the North Shore.”

They went online a month or so ago and had their launch party just a few days ago (see the videos below). There’s a particularly timely aspect to the entire endeavor, since it both fills a general need for the North Shore arts community and culture and also capitalizes on the current and ongoing collapse of print journalism.

I’d find it interesting even if my sister weren’t involved.

Here are two videos about the whole thing.

First, a slick piece produced by Zingerplatz Pictures, whose mastermind, Joe Cultrera, is deeply involved in the NS Art Throb project. My sister is the one who starts talking at about 1:20 about the need for Art Throb in the era of a collapsing print newspaper industry.

Then there’s the official video of the Art Throb launch party itself. The resolution is a bit fuzzy but you can still sense the bustling excitement of the event: